Spanish police seal off Catalan polling stations

Spain's central governmentsaid Friday that the regional Catalan police, the Mossos d'Esquadra, would be responsible for removing people from polling stations in a nonviolent way.

It has its own language and culture.

Spain's constitution stipulates that only the federal government has the power to call a referendum on sovereignty.

-2010: Spain's Madrid-based Constitutional Court strikes down key parts of the 2006 charter, inadvertently breathing new life into the secession movement.

And, if Catalonia gains independence, Figueras suspects that Barcelona and other Catalan sides will have to choose whether to remain in the Spanish league or look to join a competition in another country. He loves his work and decided his taxi was an ideal platform to advance his ambitions for an independent Catalonia.

"The government will have big difficulties stopping the referendum in the territory, the state simply can not control the whole region, but they will try to prevent it taking place in key areas such as Barcelona", Lluis Orriols Galve, a professor of politics at the Carlos III University of Madrid, told Al Jazeera.

At a press conference Friday, Catalan Vice President Oriol Junqueras said that if "someone closes a polling station, there is an alternative for citizens to vote", without giving further details. Still, many Catalans feel disrespected by the central government in Madrid and complain that they pay more in taxes than they receive back in public spending.

Now, whatever happens on Sunday and afterward, he said that "the big question" was whether "the Catalan mindset has changed permanently with regard to relations with the Spanish state".

Carles Riera, a lawmaker in the regional parliament for the radical CUP party, part of Catalonia's separatist coalition, vowed that mobilisation would continue after Sunday's vote - if the "yes" camp won but Madrid opposed the result, as is nearly certain.

Spain's King Felipe VI met with deafening jeers at Camp Nou at the final of the Copa del Rey in 2015, and the chants of "Independence!" that are a fixed feature of every home match are set to be at maximum volume come Sunday.

Catalan leaders have finally revealed the ballot boxes they plan to use.

-June 9 2017: Catalan president Carlos Puigdemont announces a new vote on independence on Oct.1.

Alfonso Dastis said today: "What they are pushing is not democracy".

Cyberspace has become an active front in the Catalan rebellion for independence as the Spanish government pulls down websites, police detain hackers and software developers and haul them into court to testify, and even Wikileaks founder Julian Assange wades into the fray. Police seize 10 million ballot papers in a crackdown. Google has also deleted a smartphone application publicized by regional Catalan officials aimed at directing voters to their nearest polling stations.

Even Serbia, still smarting from the 2008 secession of Kosovo, hasn't explicitly backed the Spanish government - even though Spain is one of the five European Union states that doesn't recognize Kosovo's independence.

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